Communal violence and targeting Muslims During Ram Navami Festivals in Aurangabad and Jalgaon, Maharashtra A Report By Bebaak Collective APRIL-2023
The report documents the increasing state repression and the fundamentalist majoritarian onslaught during the religious festivals and its impact on the lives of the minority communities.
The entrenched patriarchal belief that women’s bodies are the markers of the community’s honour has always cast it as a site of violence. Women from marginalized backgrounds have always been subjected to sexual violence and rape in riots, pogroms, and extremist communal acts of violence.
The anti-muslim violence during the Ram Navami festivals in Kiradpura, Ohar, and Paldhi severely impacted the lives of Muslim women living in these areas. The impact of these religious extremists' violence on Muslim women and their mental health often goes unacknowledged. People have spoken about the emotional trauma they have gone through during this time.
The nature of the investigation carried out by the Police administration the next day of violence humiliated Muslim women. They were intimidated and threatened to submit their family members to police for questioning. In Paldhi, the police personnel verbally abused them and gave communal
and sexual slurs. Due to the Police crackdown at midnight, damaging every property of the Muslim residents, the children, and other family members are traumatized. After the police crackdown, many families started sleeping under the same roof.
The loss of social and financial security because of these riots has put enormous burdens on women from the Muslim community.
The Report says we are witnessing similar tensions in Trimbakeshwar in Nashik and Akola in Maharashtra. 8 These instances of communal violence are
not just limited to the festivals of Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti. The steadily increasing aggression against Muslim community and attacks on their festivals, properties and everyday life implies the state’s complicity in perpetuating and normalizing communal hatred.